Santa Clara's bid for a huge upset in the WCC tournament fell two points short Saturday night.

After Jared Brownridge had tied the game with a jumper with 9.1 seconds left, Gonzaga's David Stockton drove the lane and made a layup with just more than a second left to lift top-seeded Gonzaga to a 77-75 thriller over the ninth-seeded Broncos.

In the postgame news conference, Santa Clara head coach Kerry Keating praised his team, saying that he wants his players "to understand that if we play this hard for every game no matter who we're playing, we're not going to lose too many games."

For much of Saturday evening, it didn't appear the Broncos (14-19) would lose. They were up by as many as eight in the first half.

They led most of the second half and even after they were down by five with less than 40 seconds to go, they managed to tie the game.

Then after Gary Bell Jr. was called for a traveling violation, Brownridge nailed a jumper from the left elbow to make it 75-75, setting up Stockton's game-winner.

"It was truly a great win for us," Gonzaga head coach Mark Few said. "We had to dig as deep as probably we've had to dig this year."

Few tipped his cap to Santa Clara's scrambling defense. It forced the Zags into 16 turnovers, off which the Broncos scored 23 points.

"They did a great job," Few said. "They were flying around, playing so hard on the defensive end, being really disruptive."

For the second straight Gonzaga-Santa Clara matchup, forward Sam Dower Jr. disrupted the Broncos' chances for a surprise. His three-pointer with 1.9 seconds lifted Gonzaga to a 54-52 thriller at the Leavey Center on Jan. 29.

On Saturday, Dower led the Zags (26-6) with 23 points. He went 15-for-15 from the line, tying two tourney records set by USF's Tim Owens in 1991: most foul shots made and most foul shots made without a miss.

In the first half, it seemed Brownridge couldn't miss. He buried open shots. He buried contested shots. If there is any type of shot other than those two, he buried it as well.

The WCC Newcomer of the Year went 7-for-10 from the floor, including 4-for-5 from beyond the arc en route to scoring 18 points in the half. He finished with a game-high 24.

Though disappointed with the loss, Brownridge took heart from how well the Broncos played.

"It's a great opportunity to go back in the offseason and build off this," Brownridge said. "Next year, I think we've put ourselves in a good position to where nobody's going to want to mess with us."